Howto fix Firefox Flash Video Sound on Ubuntu Linux Dapper

by macewan on June 1, 2006

If after a system update you’ve discovered that streaming Flash is without sound - fear not. Dapper will at times drop the sound from Firefox & Flash, as always you need to search the forums before freaking out as someone has more than likely already experienced the problem and discovered a solution. Trial and error has lead me to the following fix on my system.

sudo aptitude install alsa-oss
sudo gedit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc

FIREFOX_DSP=”aoss”

After making these adjustment you’ll need to visit a site that plays Linux videos to see how well things worked out.

Ubuntube.net

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{ 85 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Stephan 06.11.06 at 8:35 pm

Thanks! Just what I needed.

cheers
Stephan

2 Kenny 06.18.06 at 10:35 pm

Though this fix worked, I noticed that flash started to hesitate several minutes into a long video (on video.google.com). Firefox crashed after 12 minutes in. It may be my setup, but I wonder if this workaround is making firefox unstable?

3 macewan 06.19.06 at 1:13 am

Kenny,
What is you cache set to for Flash?

4 Kenny 06.19.06 at 11:27 pm

It was set to 50mb; I increased it to 100mb. Thanks for the advice.

5 aileen 06.23.06 at 8:52 pm

Thanks for posting the fix. It works beautifully.

6 Roaikgid 07.07.06 at 9:39 pm

I tried this and it did not help. I have been having other problems with sound as well and have only gotten things to work that have an alsa plug-in or option.

7 chimpoid 07.08.06 at 1:01 pm

Roalikgid

On Breezy:FIREFOX_DSP=”none”

On Dapper: FIREFOX_DSP=”aoss”

Make sure that /dev/dsp exists.
If not then try:

cd /dev
sudo ./MAKEDEV audio

Restart Firefox and check again. If that works then add it to the end of etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh so that it will run on boot.

8 Hamish 07.11.06 at 7:08 am

You da man!

9 dougz 07.11.06 at 1:43 pm

Thank you!

Flash audio had been working fine on Dapper until I applied this morning’s updates. Sigh…

Your fix didn’t work after restarting Firefox, but did work fine after reboot. Didn’t check just logging out and back in.

10 samyboy 07.12.06 at 5:04 am

loggin out and back is enough

11 chimpoid 07.12.06 at 5:45 am

Sorry ’bout that.
Old Windows habits die hard :)

12 carlos lorenz 07.12.06 at 6:19 am

works good. thanks!
ps: first I had to add a new line at sources.list. this one
deb http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper universe

13 dougz 07.12.06 at 2:55 pm

Well, the fix stopped working for me. No problem with /dev/dsp –

$ ls -l /dev/dsp
crw-rw—- 1 root audio 14, 3 2006-07-12 11:47 /dev/dsp

$ cat /etc/firefox/firefoxrc
# which /dev/dsp wrapper to use
FIREFOX_DSP=”aoss”

Fresh logout/login with still no sound on flash video.

Tried invoking as “aoss firefox” with no joy, per Flash/No Sound thread —
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=187207

Tried the suggestion (same source)
System - Preferences - Sessions - Startup programs and add
ln -s /tmp/.esd-1000 /tmp/.esd
logged out/in — no joy.

I can live with the flash audio/video synce problems. At least I could listen to flash video in Fedora. Dapper is very disappointing.

Am I SOL or is there anything else I can try?

14 dougz 07.12.06 at 3:04 pm

Sound back after boot. WTF?

15 jeremy 07.13.06 at 5:13 pm

wish i’d known about this sooner! i’ve been lamenting the loss of sound since the switchover from xp (extra problems?) to ubuntu - but now that I have my google videos and youtube back, I’m a very happy camper - thanks for the help!

16 Captain "HW" Murdock 07.18.06 at 7:27 pm

Thnanks for the fix!

17 Jordan 07.28.06 at 10:53 am

Hey all,

Thanks for all the info on this - it’s something that’s been really bugging me about Ubuntu.

I followed the directions but for some reason whenever I used XMMS, the flash sound would STILL cut out. Here’s how I finally fixed it (might work for you if you had the same config in XMMS):

1) Go to Options -> Preferences in XMMS
2) Click on [Configure] for ALSA output plugin (under Audio I/O Plugins)
3) Ensure the “Audio Device” is set to “default” and not the name of your actual sound chipset (mine was set to “SiS” chipset and then had (hw:0,0) listed). I think this is because it tries to take exclusive control of the same device file as Firefox and it can’t. Now I can play XMMS, Xine, and Flash sound at the same time!! Woohoo! (Welcome to the 90’s!!) =p

That is what seemed to keep Firefox flash sound from coming up, even after the above fix. I hope this helps people who are/were in my situation!!

Jordan

18 ArthurA 07.29.06 at 7:40 am

Worked for me! Thanks a lot! (Ubuntu Dapper)

19 Jack 07.30.06 at 5:50 am

Thanks very much man, an easy and effective fix.

20 Syrra 08.02.06 at 7:44 pm

Wow, thanks. Now I can actually listen to all the cute little videos that get linked to in IRC. :D

21 Metroid48 08.06.06 at 8:58 am

Hey, thanks for the fix! It works great, though it is a little less stable. Oh well, at least the sound doesn’t randomly drop off or get out of synch!

Thanks a lot!
-Metroid48

22 Will Warner 08.10.06 at 7:15 pm

Thank you!!

23 Alex 08.15.06 at 1:04 pm

It works fine with me! Thank you!

24 DidIt 08.16.06 at 2:23 am

Thanks man… Yeahhhhhhhhhh. :)

25 Tom 08.22.06 at 4:36 am

Cheers dude!!!

This did the trick!!!

A log out > Log back in was required though

Thanks again

26 Dawid Szałęga 08.31.06 at 10:56 pm

Just… THX… Good work

27 chris UK 09.01.06 at 12:38 am

Brilliant, just what Ineeded. This had been bugging me for ages after switching from XP to Ununtu. Thanks.

28 Danny 09.02.06 at 11:35 pm

I’m having the crashing firefox after 12 minutes problem mentioned above. Apparently the solution is to increase the flash cache. How do I do this?
Oddly, when I right click on flash to go to options the text is missing. This is also true of google video — clicking on preferences shows a menu sans text. Am I missing a font package or something for flash? Thanks

29 Thomas David Baker 09.07.06 at 4:46 am

Danny - I think what there were saying is that it’s Firefox’s cache that needs to be increased. You can do this in Firefox at: Edit, Preferences, Privacy, Cache and increase the number (usually 50) to 100, or more.

30 Eric Bandholz 09.10.06 at 6:55 pm

Thanks for the help. This fixed the issue.

31 Matt 09.11.06 at 10:06 am

Good one. :) All fixed.

32 Nick 09.11.06 at 11:16 pm

german@lists.debian.org
Also try doing an lsof | grep dsp to see who’s using the dsp at the moment. Might give some clues if the device is locked.

33 Martin Dubeau 09.12.06 at 5:58 am

This fix works also for Debian Sarge Unstable with KDE 3.5, Firefox 1.5.0.6.

34 Dan 09.13.06 at 10:56 pm

Thanks for the info on how to fix Flash Video Sound
on Ubunto Dapper 2.6.15-26-686 it fixed my installation on a IBM t43 laptop

35 PoPo 09.27.06 at 1:41 am

Thank you !

36 Ropechoborra 09.30.06 at 5:12 am

The sound problem is fixed, but i cant i got tu do
cd /dev
sudo ./MAKEDEV audio
in order to fix it..

“…Restart Firefox and check again. If that works then add it to the end of /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh so that it will run on boot. .. ”

How do i do that? what do i have to write in the file?
Thanks! =)

37 Ken 09.30.06 at 12:13 pm

I googled for ‘ubuntu flash sound’ which led me to your site. I implemented the fix and it worked beautifully. Thanks for posting it.

38 Wallace 10.01.06 at 5:51 am

Thanks mate worked first shot (thats unusual on linux for me at this stage)
Now how to get this fix working on Epiphany??

39 Nik 10.01.06 at 9:35 am

Thanks you!! works awesome!

40 nathaniel 10.07.06 at 4:02 pm

Thank ; )

41 pangolin 10.10.06 at 4:56 pm

I found this in ubuntu forums and worked for me:

ln -s /tmp/.esd-1000 /tmp/.esd

42 Gare 10.14.06 at 8:46 am

Thank you! After a reboot this worked like charm.

For your payment:

Weird Al “White & Nerdy” on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEzGIuY7kw

43 Juan 10.15.06 at 11:24 am

OMG! I thought I would have to reinstall Ubuntu. Thank you!

44 Kza 10.17.06 at 9:30 am

Hmm how do you specify which device to use? On my system /dev/dsp is the webcams mic, and my soundcard is /dev/dsp1

45 Erika 10.25.06 at 3:30 pm

To avoid logging out, after editing /etc/firefox/firefoxrc execute the command ‘export FIREFOX_DSP=”aoss”‘ or ’source /etc/firefox/firefoxrc’ in your terminal and restart Firefox from that terminal.

Of course, you’ll have to do this every time until you log out again, but it’s better than having to set everything back up.

46 Me 11.18.06 at 7:44 am

Folks: you may be interested in figuring out how to get esd and alsa working simulanteously.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=8882&highlight=hear+multiple+sound

47 Furieh. 11.24.06 at 12:52 pm

Thanks a lot, man. It required a reboot but who cares?

48 coppi 12.17.06 at 7:45 am

Thanks! Fixed !

49 alec 01.25.07 at 3:26 pm

ok i dont want to sound like an idiot, but i dont know what to do, i see that everyone is saying it works, but i dont know how to fix this

50 Patrick 02.11.07 at 12:38 am

After I did this the sound for EVERYTHING but flash did not work. My movies….

51 Patrick 02.11.07 at 12:57 am

Nope it was just me messing with my PCI drivers… Delete my comments.

52 brad 02.12.07 at 9:58 am

Thanks, I had to log back in after adding my user to the audio group. But now I have sound in firefox.

53 Christopher Parker 03.21.07 at 9:16 pm

Just thought I’d join the chorus. Thank you!

54 Eilz 04.19.07 at 1:02 pm

Can this work on Linux xDSL on the XBOX. When installing Flash9 I get no sound, but if intall FLASH7 I get sound but its very high pitched and cuts out alot.

55 sai 04.22.07 at 5:03 pm

Thank you very much! This solved not only my problem with youtube videos, but also with Totem. You dunno how this had me puzzled. Now I can enjoy movies in my Ubuntu feisty fawn!! ^_^

56 Mario 05.06.07 at 4:41 am

It worked for me - thanks for the useful manual ;)

57 jiMMy 06.15.07 at 7:57 am

Fedora 7 & Ubuntu 7.04 Flash Player 9 no-sound fix
————————————————–
With Fedora Core 4, sound is enabled using libflashsupport.so
However it crashes way too often. Luckily, we no longer need libflashsupport.so in newer distros (more importantly - no crashes).

With latest distros using Gnome, under System->Administration->Soundcard Detection, launch “Audio configuration” window.

***Example sound driver***

In “Sound test” tab, under “Device settings”, change
“PCM device” from “ES1370 DAC2/ADC” to “ES1370 DAC1″

In “Settings” tab, under “Default audio devices”, change
“Default PCM device” from “ES1370 DAC2/ADC” to “ES1370 DAC1″

In “System” tab, under “Configuration files”, press “Rewrite configuration files” button

Reboot & let me know if it works for you.

58 Jack 06.16.07 at 7:28 am

Thanks, that was really freaking me. I rebooted after that opened up a YouTube window and nearly deafened myself. Thanks.

59 yafis 06.18.07 at 10:30 pm

I installed mplayer and had to face the same problem the fix you suggested did not work for me, I am using ubuntu fiesty-fawn though… can you suggest something?

60 goldenzim 07.22.07 at 12:27 am

I was tearing my hair out over this no sound issue. This fixed it for me.

rm /home//.asoundrc

61 Martin Fasani 07.26.07 at 2:58 am

Thanks!

I got it working with Flash 7. With the new flash 9 was impossible to make it work I dunno why.
In my Dell laptop works correctly for both, but be adviced that with some integrated sound cards flash 9 is making a bad use of the ALSA libraries.
In some cases here we had to change the sound card to make flash sound work (Something that is just too much !)

62 Frank Zappa 10.02.07 at 4:12 am

Never use sudo with a graphical app! Use gksudo instead. Otherwise you might foul up your permissions big time.

sudo gedit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc
gklsudo gedit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc

63 msayed2004 10.28.07 at 7:15 pm

Works for me , thanks buddy :D

“Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8) Gecko/20071008 Firefox/2.0.0.8 with Flash 9″

64 Emilio 11.12.07 at 8:50 pm

Hello everybody

I tried every single solution posted on this forum as well on other pages about this same topic, but I couldn’t get flash player 9 sound to work. Finally, I decided to downgrade it to ver 7, which has some sync problems, but which is better as no sound at all…

65 nitin 04.12.08 at 12:08 am

Sorry guys,
This is not working for me. I am on Debian 2.6.8-2-386, Iceweasel 2.0.0.3.
Created directory /etc/firefox/firefoxrc. There was no file firefoxrc in machine. While playing youtube vieo i am getting these error continuously.

ALSA lib pcm_hw.c:1357:(_snd_pcm_hw_open) Invalid value for card
ALSA lib confmisc.c:670:(snd_func_card_driver) cannot find card ‘0′
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such device
ALSA lib confmisc.c:391:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such device
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1070:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:3500:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such device
ALSA lib conf.c:3968:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such device
ALSA lib pcm.c:2143:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default

nitin

66 swilson43 05.20.08 at 5:19 pm

worked great on 8.04, cheers

67 Integrated Data Entity's Interpreter 05.24.08 at 1:47 pm

WOOOOOT!!!! Now I have chills, and its back My Rodney Mullen video Thanx!!!XD

68 owenoak 05.26.08 at 3:30 pm

A million thanks, so simple. I had been down many twisty passages to no avail.

69 owenoak 05.26.08 at 3:32 pm

A million thanks, so simple. I had been down many twisty passages to no avail.
Running Fedora 8 by the way.

70 Hardy Heroner 07.24.08 at 3:46 pm

Thx for revealing the fix, nut it seems that does’nt work in Ubuntu Hardy Heron!!!

Seems that /etc/firefox/firefoxrc does’nt exist!!!

got firefox 3 and need some serious help!!!!

71 pro-rsoft 07.29.08 at 1:13 pm

I have firefox 3.0 installed here and its called /etc/firefox-3.0/firefoxrc . Does that work for you?

72 Kjetil 07.30.08 at 6:39 am

I also have the same problem as 108, /etc/firefox-3.0/firefoxrc does not exist.. I only have two catalogues in the firefox-3.0 dir; “pref” and “profile” and there are only some .js, .html and .rdf files present in these catalogues.. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

73 Simon 08.05.08 at 12:13 pm

this worked for me

aptitude install libflashsupport

this enhances the flash support of firefox and also the operating system.
restart firefox and thats it

74 Francisco 08.12.08 at 12:10 am

Thanks Simon I have Firefox 3 too and your solution worked for me..!!

Thanks a lot..!!

75 idiot in need 08.15.08 at 9:27 am

kk im not very clever with using computers, i have the same problem but also have another problem understanding the solution…..i have no clue about what is being said………could someone explain to me(as if your explaining to a 2 year old) of how this stuff works…

plz……….thx

76 Vadim P. 08.25.08 at 11:25 am

This article is very old… I don’t think it’s even valid anymore.

77 Keith A 08.26.08 at 12:52 pm

I found a fix titled Sound but no Sound in Flash(youtube.com)?!
The fix worked for me. Find it here:
Here

78 Keith A 08.26.08 at 12:54 pm

I found this fix that worked for me (using Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron). It might work for other versions, haven’t tried it.
Sound but no Sound in Flash(youtube.com)

79 pr0t0s 08.30.08 at 6:13 pm

Simon’s fix worked for me with Firefox 3, and Fedora Core 9. Nothing else worked.

80 Remy 09.04.08 at 10:57 am

Hi all, I have a similar problem when playing YouTube with firefox 3 and Ubuntu 8.04 the volume is very very less i tried #111 and #115 none worked for me, Can anyone help me in this?

81 Stv 10.31.08 at 5:27 pm
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83 Kemal 03.10.09 at 10:33 pm

Check out these instructions, which helped me:
jemunt.blogspot.com

84 Tamara 05.02.09 at 5:39 pm

Hi can someone please help me. I downloaded the flash player and now videos work but the sound just want work. Can someone tell me what to do???

85 jr 06.20.09 at 7:45 am

** (gedit:6256): WARNING **: Hit unhandled case 1 (Datei nicht gefunden) in gedit_unrecoverable_saving_error_message_area_new.
jr@jr-desktop:~$ sudo gedit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc

** (gedit:6259): WARNING **: Hit unhandled case 1 (Datei nicht gefunden) in gedit_unrecoverable_saving_error_message_area_new.

why is that?
???

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